Seeds of Change
by IrksomeIrene
Summary: What doesn't kill her, will make her stronger. Yet another unpacking of the "I love you" scene from someone that really should have gone to bed five hours ago and officially a one-shot that created a life of its own.
1. Chapter 1

It sounded like a default ringtone. It _was_ a default ringtone. A basic sound that came with the phone. But it belonged only to Sherlock. If anyone else rang, her phone would spring to life singing "Dead Sea Monkeys" by Lemon Demon. If that wasn't enough to know exactly who was calling her (a bit strange for him as he truly did prefer to text but not unheard of when he was in a rush or otherwise feeling particularly in need of attention _right this second_ ), she could see the name across the top of the screen as she rose up and turned. She was grateful when the phone went still. Less grateful when it sprang to life again.

It hadn't happened over night. This hurt. This heaviness. It was the sort of thing that took time.

The seeds had been planted throughout their acquaintance. On the very same breeze Sherlock Holmes swept into her life, came the seeds of hurt and heartbreak. But Molly, despite being quite alone in the world, took good care of herself. Molly allowed herself to be sad but did not allow it to eat up her life. Molly loved herself in her family's stead. Molly took pride and joy in her work. Molly was content, even if she was not always happy. And that was okay. She was okay with that.

Right until those carelessly planted seeds began to take root.

It began in earnest the night Sherlock was shot. Molly rarely left the lower levels of Bart's. The morgue and the lab were her home. Occasionally, she wandered into the cafeteria if she forgot her own lunch or found her carefully packed fair riffled through but Molly Hooper had never really had occasion to venture into the realms of the living. Until Sherlock Holmes, of course.

No one called to tell her Sherlock had been shot. No, the world was not so kind as that. Instead, the new morgue attendant who got nervously chatty when he had to deal with the dead (after first meeting him, she'd bet herself a frilly coffee that he'd transfer out by summer) had babbled on about being relieved it was only "that ol' gran from upstairs" and not the posh bloke who'd apparently died well enough on the table the doctor had been in the middle of calling it when the patient had simply kicked himself back into the world of the living. Molly had been mildly interested—not many people escaped death's first go around and while it was clearly a highly exaggerated account, peeking at the medical notes on her next break might be fun—and something about it had caught the very corner of her attention and refused to let go.

"Apparently he's famous too, my baby sister reads 'is blog." Molly was fairly certain he continued on for a bit but she couldn't hear past the wash of ice through her veins. It was silly, really. This was the 21st century. Practically everyone and their dog had a blog. _She_ had a blog. There were thousands and thousands of people that were "internet famous." And sure, there weren't likely to be very many people in the world so completely bloody minded as to kick death in the balls and run but surely, if it were Sherlock, someone would have called her. Someone would have taken the lift down to give her word—would have even bothered to _page her_.

For a little while, Molly took it as a good sign that no one came, no one called, no one paged. But the feeling in her gut wouldn't leave her be. And so she'd wandered into the world of the living to find John a mess and Sherlock not yet out of the woods.

Molly was forgotten in the hubbub of needing answers and knowing nothing. Well, not nothing. John was a doctor—an army doctor at that. He'd surely seen plenty of gunshot wounds. He'd seen Sherlock's—his hands had been bloody enough from attempts to stem the bleeding. That John was so shaken to his core—that she knew but apparently the others gathering didn't, that Sherlock had actually succumbed to his injuries for a time and might very well again or return to the living not at all whole—told her just how bad things really were.

She cried in a corner for a bit. Quietly at first, unnoticed, before slipping away to find a little used stairwell as the tears got worse—deep, gut wrenching sobs echoing up and down the void of concrete and metal until she could barely breathe. When the tears finally dried, she felt as if her very soul had been scooped out of her numbed body. But this was not her first time crying in empty stairwells or pacing in waiting rooms or waiting for the people she loved to live or die. While there was a temptation to remain forever hidden exactly where she was—the man she loved unrequitedly safely frozen as some sort of Schrodinger's cat; both alive and dead so long as she stayed exactly where she was and never again heard word of the outside world—she knew better.

So she fetched coffee and patted shoulders and did all the little things no one really noticed but needed all the same. Time lost quite a lot of meaning as they waited for Sherlock to come out of surgery, then waited for him to be stable enough to be seen, then waited for him to just… just _please God, wake up_.

Molly waited all through the night with Sherlock, sat by his bed, monitored his vitals, prayed and prayed and prayed, begged him in whispers not to end up on her table again—not when it was for real, not when there wasn't a decoy waiting and secret plan in place.

She had barely seen him since his return from the living. He had told her in person the game was done, he had popped into the lab a few times, John had invited her to Baker Street an even fewer times, Sherlock had even taken her on that heart wrenching day out; even if it was just as a replacement for John, no matter that he denied it (he had deduced that she could not do it again but she often—too often for her own good—wondered if he had deduced _why_ she could never again spend an entire day side-by-side with the man she loved). But instead of a greater closeness—some sort of recognition of their friendship now that she had come to his aid in his darkest hour, had broken some rather serious laws, had risked her her medical license, her career, every achievement of her life to date and her very life itself—things just… returned to how they'd been. Perhaps, even, with more distance than before.

And now, Molly thought, she might be beginning to understand why that was. It was morning, apparently (Molly was still having trouble judging time), and with it came not only John Watson, but the day nurse to kick them both out while he tended to his patient. It was in the mountains of abused periodicals and rags on the table before them that Molly found The Sun. The headlines plastered across an otherwise rather lovely shot of Sherlock smiling and holding close to Janine—Mary's maid of honor—made Molly's heart sink and shatter. She thought she might actually cry again.

"Can you believe that git?" John asked, too exhausted to be properly pissed, it seemed. Molly wasn't sure she could speak properly if she'd wanted to and John continued away, "He proposed to that woman just to break into an office." He continued on for a bit, the scolding he was clearly going to be giving Sherlock later leaking into the waiting room.

And then Mary was there and then _Janine_ was there and Greg and she thought she'd spotted Sherlock's brother lurking about and suddenly there wasn't any more space for her—any more need for her. Sherlock was awake. His doctor reported he was miraculously devoid of obvious signs of brain trauma and all would be well with time and rest.

Molly tried to hail a cab but lacked Sherlock's frankly ridiculous cab hailing abilities and eventually gave it up to take the tube instead. And in the quiet, even rocking and steady screeching of metal on metal, tucked back into her corner with her sturdy, practical bag nested on her lap, she began to think and reflect.

She reflected on that terrible, terrible Christmas years ago, remembered the startled excitement when John had invited her. It had been so very long since she'd had a Christmas with people. As she didn't really have anyone to spend it with, she usually volunteered to work whatever was needed through Christmas and New Year. She had been so exited, so, so exited to spend it with living people—people she liked! It wasn't just Sherlock (though that had felt like some sort of fairy tale right up until Sherlock went and opened his mouth) she had been looking forward to seeing, either. It was simple delight at the prospect of warm, friendly _company_. She had day dreamed quite a bit about spending the Christmas party with Sherlock but she'd had many more simple (realistic) day dreams, too. She had wanted to see if she couldn't get Greg and John to sing a bit—possibly get the two goof balls a bit tipsy if she had to. She wanted to finally get to know Mrs. Hudson a bit better. They usually only saw each other when Molly was delivering or disposing of body parts and tissue samples. She had wanted to meet John's new girl, had wanted to have a casual chat with Greg, had wanted to simply… enjoy Christmas with the living again.

She'd made it barely two steps in the door before it was all torn to pieces before her very eyes as Sherlock opened his mouth and cruel, careless word after cruel, careless word spilled from him without a single thought. She knew he couldn't help it some times; it was why he had used for so long, just to try to dim the noise of the world around him, to just stop seeing _every little thing_. But that didn't stop the brutal hurt of his casual deductions—in front of everyone, no less. She had stood up for herself a bit. He had apologized and given her a little kiss on the cheek, a thing she would always, always cherish. But the night had been spoiled for her. Even with Sherlock retreated to his bedroom, even as she tried desperately to strike up conversation and get the mood back to light hearted, she could not chase the pity from their eyes. She left to the sound of Sherlock's violin filling the flat with seasonal cheer and beauty.

She reflected on the beautiful body with the bashed in face that came so hot on the heels of that night. And how was it that The Great Sherlock Holmes could recognize such a badly beaten corpse but not see it would be his own name on that silly card for that silly gift? And how was it that he could be so perfectly cruel without even meaning to be, with out even trying? For until that night, Molly had had some small comfort in the fact that Sherlock didn't take interest in anyone. Male, female, it didn't matter. Only The Work mattered. It was some small comfort to know that it wasn't her flaws, her small lips her small breasts, her morbid humor, her awkwardness, her anything that made her undesirable. It was simply that Sherlock did not desire. Only, he'd taken that comfort away from her, too. Because now, he might desire and—as Molly read John's blog and listened to both men complain absentmindedly at her—it seemed perhaps Sherlock had two passions in this life; The Work and The Woman.

Molly Hooper may be a bright, cheerful, generally happy sort of person—working always towards being at least content when she could not be happy—but she was _not_ an idiot. She had eyes, she had done Adler's doppelganger's autopsy, she was quite familiar with her own living body. Molly Hooper was a woman, certainly, but she would never, by any standard, be _The Woman_. She had thought the pain of that Christmas would be enough salt in enough wounds to break her love of Sherlock. And to some degree, it had worked.

For years now, she had known—accepted, even—that she would never be the focus of any sincere romantic attentions from Sherlock. She had even grown into the idea that she didn't count; not really. Not to Sherlock, not to those people that pitied her at work, not to anyone really. She had been just starting to accept that, too, when Sherlock had had sudden need of her. And she had believed. She had believe completely and utterly that he honestly did need her. Not just in that moment, not just in that single plan, but for the whole of it. She had believe it enough to cling tight to the idea that when Sherlock returned—and he _would_ return, nightmares and semi-permanent knot in her heart be damned—she and he would be friends. Real and true friends. She believed in it so much and had been so ready to set aside romantic feels that would certain spoil their friendship eventually that she set to finding someone to divert her attentions to with calculated determination. She had been ready to marry a man she did not truly love just so she might preserve a friendship with that man who would likely always hold her heart.

And then he'd come back and even though he'd been distant, even though she'd seen hardly anything of him, even though spending the entire day with him had been a blissful agony and reminded her that no matter how hard she tried or how desperately she wanted it, she would never be able to simply stop loving Sherlock Holmes; he spoke those sweet words _she counted_ and pressed a crippling kiss to her cheek. And fool she was, she believed. She believed him wholly and without reserve.

She reflected on the wedding of John and Mary, remembered the bittersweet words that had struck a chord in both her and Greg's hearts, " _I never expected to be anyone's best friend._ " She and Greg had known Sherlock for years before John stepped into the consulting detective's life. They had taken their lumps and their kicks in the teeth and thoroughly lost track of the number of times they had been publicly humiliated by the man. She and Greg had taken shifts watching over Sherlock the last time he'd gone off drugs. They had both seen Sherlock at his lowest lows, had stayed fast to his side, held faith in him always—even through Moriarty's madness. But he had not seen a best friend in either of them. He even refused to remember Greg's first name and shamelessly manipulated Molly with falsely kind words. Despite all they had done for him—all they would continue to do for him—Sherlock Holmes did not think of them as friends; they were still just _people_.

She reflected on the next time she saw him—not bursting through the lab doors or lurking in quite corners just to dramatically scare the life out of her, but dragged in by the ear looking like a long time homeless man with pupils dilated enough a urine test was hardly even necessary. She had seen him like this before—had walked by his side through the agony of his detox. She slapped him. Three times. And still, despite her fury, despite her horror and fear and grief; in short order she was left alone in her lab with nothing but the print out results of Sherlock's drug test to cry into. Both her hands had seemed to sting for hours and hours afterwards. And in the nights when she tossed and turned and wandered the streets stuck halfway between hoping she'd stumble upon him and hoping desperately that she wouldn't—that he was safe and sound and sober—in those long, long nights, her hands would sting again. Yet, she could not convince herself to regret it, even knowing it might have been the last moment they ever had together. People could not continue to put such heavy blind faith in the man and expect him to carry the weight of it all on his own without consequences—consequences she was not at all ready for Sherlock to face.

Molly reflected on the new revelation that Sherlock had faked an entire romantic entanglement for months, had even proposed (which meant, Molly realized, at some point, Sherlock must have said those three most precious of words to Janine, must have said them convincingly enough that shrewd, cunning Janine believed them)—purely to get into an office. And that was okay to Sherlock Holmes. Because Janine was not John Watson or Mary Watson (God, she adored Mary but it was hard sometimes not to be crushingly jealous of the closeness those two had)—Janine was just people.

People were pieces on a board; part of a delightful game to be played between "sociopath" and psychopath. People were tools to be used to stave off the boredom. People were a means to an end.

And she was people. _Just_ people.

When she returned to Bart's the next day, she returned to second hand news of Sherlock's escape after being asked if she knew where the _critically injured_ man might be. He nearly bleeds out internally on the way back to the hospital. Then he's allegedly clean again but he's filled with a manic sort of energy on the few occasions she sees him that she's put on edge. If he isn't still using, he's _planning_ something; the sort of something that had him dead for two years last time. But she doesn't know who to voice her concerns to, or if she should voice anything at all, and every time she tries to offer her help to Sherlock himself, he brushes her off, barely hearing a word.

And then Mary gets shot (Molly's beginning to wonder how it is there are suddenly so many guns floating about London—this was hardly America! She really shouldn't know so many people who regularly carried illegal fire arms and other weaponry on their persons) and slips into a coma and John is devastated and furious and Molly's genuinely concerned John might actually not forgive Sherlock for whatever it is that actually happened at that aquarium. After a bit of lashing out at Sherlock, John becomes barely functional. Molly puts in some of her saved up leave to take care of her goddaughter and somehow taking care of Rosie turns into taking care of Rosie and John and Mary and tending Mrs. Hudson and worrying constantly over Sherlock and trying hard to find enough time to do more than just set her own grief and fear over Mary's condition on the back burner and she feels like she's aging a decade every week and her leave is running out and she just doesn't know what to do and she's caught herself one to many times calling Mary for advice or to vent only to realize Mary's not around when her cheerful voicemail taunts Molly.

It's not fair. Not an ounce of it. But it is what it is, so Molly finds stop gaps to keep things running until Mary wakes up or dies. She manages to convince John to go back to counseling. He's been limping again—though he doesn't seem to notice it fully—and he simply can't continue on as he's been going; not now that he's got a child to look after as well. Molly finds a few sitters through Mrs. Hudson's friends (with enemies like the three of them have, she doesn't trust herself to find a non-assassin child minder off the internet). It almost feels like things are starting to maybe be getting a bit better when Sherlock calls her from out of the blue and makes the strangest request; apparently he's ordering his ambulance in advance—well, well in advance. Molly isn't sure what to make of it. Most definitely, it's nothing good. And if she weren't getting zero to four hours of sleep a day, she might have the energy to toss and turn and fret over the giant idiot but as it stands, she decides it's best to simply be there when he needs her.

She wished she hadn't. She wished she'd left it alone. She wished she hadn't seen the signs and symptoms Sherlock bore so prominently on so very many corpses throughout her career. She wished Sherlock Holmes had never picked up a god forsaken needle in his life. But it didn't matter what she wished because Sherlock had shown her exactly what he'd been up to while she was struggling to hold the rest of his world together single handedly and she could never unsee that. She could never unknow exactly how willing Sherlock was to die for John Watson—even when the soldier seemed like he might actually murder his best friend if given half an excuse. No one told her what happened after that. She hadn't seen Sherlock since and John had gone quiet again. And now, in her own kitchen for the first time in she wasn't even sure how long any more, Molly Hooper stood hurt and heavy—from the center of her soul to the tips of her fingers.

And Sherlock _bloody_ Holmes was once again ringing her up. He would stop, eventually. She knew that. She could let it ring out another time or two and he'd huff and puff about it but he'd text or bother someone else for whatever it was he needed. And yet, she couldn't make herself ignore his call—even now, even through all this mess, she still wouldn't risk not being there for him in an hour of need.

Only it wasn't a moment of weakness where he thought he might use and needed a friendly voice to bicker with. It wasn't some genius idea he needed to test our right this minute. It wasn't anything but a vicious, cruel joke.

It cut her so deeply—it cut her more than his deductions about Jim from IT, it cut her more than Christmas, it cut her more than any remark he'd ever made about her body. It cut her so deeply she couldn't even hear his panicked commanding when she nearly hung up on him over the sound of the ripping of her heart.

 _Please, God, Sherlock, just leave it be. Just leave me this!_ She could barely think through the pain of it. How could he make fun of her for this? She kept it to herself—had for years now! She didn't ask him to return her feelings, didn't try to show him her heart anymore. She was good, she was so good about keeping it out of his way, about keeping it buried inside herself so he'd never have to see it. She and her heart kept themselves from getting under foot. Why, _God why_ , was he now mocking her for something she couldn't even control!

"It's a sort of experiment." He said in almost stilted words.

"I'm not an experiment, Sherlock." She answered back. And she wasn't. She was herself. She was a living, breathing, feeling person. But.. but she wasn't always certain that to Sherlock, she wasn't some sort of experiment; a petri dish he would one day throw out when he'd learned all he thought he could from whatever it was he was studying. To hear him nearly admit that her worst fear was true cracked something inside her.

And still, she begged him for mercy. She begged him to simply stop. Whatever game, whatever experiment, whatever case, "Just don't do it." she could barely get the words past the growing agony in her throat, her breathing already beginning to come short. She wouldn't survive this. Couldn't he see that?

 _ **She would**_ _ **not**_ _ **survive this.**_

And yet, he pulled it from her. Slowly, a torture in and of itself. To not only have to speak the words but to admit to them before hand, to be reminded vividly that Sherlock did not see her—not enough to know how she felt for him, though it was plain as day. Or perhaps he saw perfectly but simply deleted the useless data every time. For he never factored in her affections for him. Never took her feelings into consideration. Maybe he deleted nearly all of her. Maybe he saw nothing of her because there was nothing to see. Maybe the mercy she had seen first hand he could display to his clients was not worthy of her. She was not a client or a case; she was an experiment. You did not show mercy to an experiment. You exposed it to variables, recorded the data, and moved on. And so three little words would be the variable that finally broke her.

But she would not give up so easily. She still had some hope—the most pervasive, unrelenting force in all the universe—that she could stop this, stop it before it was to late.

"You say it." She countered, "Go on, you say it first."

If he was her friend—as he claimed to be on occasion, when he needed something—he wouldn't say it. He would not lie so grandly, so completely to her if she was a friend. He had told that lie to Janine. He had told lies like it to villains and clients and _people_. So now the question was simple: Was she a _friend_ —certainly not like John Watson, never even close, but as close to Sherlock as she would ever be—or was she still and always _people_.

There was a beat of silence and Molly prayed that would be the end of it, and then, stilted and forced through the quiet, "I-I…" She held her breath, cradled the phone close to her ear because as much as she prayed he did not lie to her, her heart was still desperate to hear those words from his lips, just once, just once in her life, "I love you." She gave a little sigh, her lips twisting for a moment into an almost smile because despite everything, the sound of those words were a piece of heaven when strung together by that voice. And there was that small hope again, that hope that clung to his hesitance, clung to the uneasy way it sounded from him, like trying to pronounce in a newly learned foreign language. And there was hope in that. Because that wasn't what a sincere _I love you_ sounded like. And if he could not lie completely to her, if he still wanted to play these games but could not lie completely to her, then there was hope. Perhaps she was not a friend but perhaps she was not completely _people_ , either.

It was a hope that died so completely in the next breath.

"I love you." He said again and she could see now why Janine wouldn't have batted an eye at Sherlock's whirlwind proposal. He spoke with such sincerity she felt her heart pull like a physical thing, trying to leap from her chest into his arms before it crumpled in on itself, breaking along the way. She pulled the phone away from her ear, thought for a brief moment about simply hanging up on him. If he was going to so completely destroy her, perhaps she could keep those words to herself, ruin his experiment, his game, have some petty vengeance of her own.

But those precious words were stuck in her tightening throat now, and even knowing it was a lie, even knowing this was the end of them—had to be the end of them—she knew also that she would say them. Not for Sherlock but for herself. Vengeance had never made anyone happy, had never really been her style. But she could love with all her heart, even when it hurt. And when this was over, she could pick up the pieces all by herself and continue on.

Loving Sherlock Holmes would not end her. She would shut this long, long chapter of her life and _**she would survive.**_

"I love you." She murmured softly, gently into the phone. In answer, there was only silence. In this love, there was only her.


	2. Chapter 2

The coffin in the room made him wary the moment he saw it. For a brief, panicked moment, he thought it was for John—of the three of them John was the only one near enough in height to fit. But in the next breath, he was certain it wasn't; what lay before him was not a soldier's coffin. Which meant they would be presented with yet another innocent bystander. This was not a game he wanted to play. This was not the adrenaline rush he was after. People were dying left, right, and center at the hands of his very own sister (he was still trying to cope with the fact that he did, indeed, actually have a sister) and so far he had been absolutely powerless to stop it—to stop any of it.

Then he was switching gears, the cogs of his mind grinding as he was reminded of not only the nameless, faceless person that would likely die within the next few minutes regardless of his efforts but the helpless child in the sky.

 _Think, think, think._

He tried to locate her, tried to get whatever clue he could through the eyes of a child but there wasn't enough time—Eurus wasn't giving him enough _time_. Still, there was some comfort in talking to the child. The little girl was a problem with potential; something his mind told him he could fix if he was given a proper chance—God what he wouldn't give to have Lestrade there to manage the case, to handle the pushing away of noisy, useless people so Sherlock could just _work_.

Then the gears of his mind were grinding again at the pace his sister forced upon them.

"Problem: Someone is about to die. It will be—as I understand it—a tragedy. So many days not lived, so many words unsaid. Etcetra, etcetra, etcetra, etcetra."

He couldn't help but to snap back a bit. He was impatient and desperate for more time and not at all ready to be the killer of more innocents. His mind was still hung up on the child's dilemma; Mycroft and John perched on his shoulders like logical devil and heartfelt angel.

But the new task at hand required his concentration. A woman's coffin, a cheap coffin—practical coffin, something she'd picked out herself—or been picked out by an executor that was not emotionally close to her. Distant from her family, then, and no romantic partner to pick up the slack. Someone familiar with death, someone comfortable with it in all its stages—and then Mycroft (the great git) did the utterly obvious. In the two steps it took him to cross the room, he berated himself. He was so panicked, so wrapped up in his own mind, he was letting the little obvious things get in his way again—there was always something.

And then, in an instant, he saw it wasn't a name. It was a far more damning answer. One he could not face for even a moment once he'd seen those three words. He had thought the most terrifying moment in his life would forever be the moment he reached out to touch glass and felt the warmth of flesh on flesh instead. How wrong he was. He could not name what was filling him now. He recognized the fear of it, the dread of it but there was so much more, so many other vile things coiling about his insides he wasn't entirely sure for several moments he wouldn't wretch. But he could not afford to feel now—not now. Molly Hooper's life hung in these next minutes, rest in his hands, in his ability to think clearly and calmly and solve whatever puzzle Eurus put before him.

As he explained to John why it was so absolutely obvious this coffin did not belong to Irene Adler (as if The Woman would rest for eternity in anything less than extravagance), his eyes focused on the coffin. He tried to blink the image away at first, tried to make himself unsee it. But his mind would not relent and so he trailed his eyes down over the image it created:

Molly Hooper resting against the plush white of the coffin's interior in her favorite dress—the one she'd worn to Rosie's christening, her slender arms folded across her belly, her hair dressed down, a carefully measured section of hair draped over each shoulder. Molly had been rather vocal once about her thoughts on embalming and the mental image conjured reflected that with skillfully done mortician's make up but no flowers tucked about her by friends and family. No little trinkets to take into death with her. Just the body of Molly Hooper, cold and still and alone, ready to be shut away, ready to be eased into a dark hollow of earth, ready to be buried and forgotten by all but the worms and roots that would make good use of her remains.

Sherlock was nearly grateful for the sharp interruption of his sister, "She's perfectly safe" it almost felt like comfort for a fraction of a moment. But comfort was not Eurus' MO and the chillingly calm explanation of explosives and the appearance of a timer on what appeared to be a live feed of Molly's prized kitchen drew him back into the horrorscape he was living.

Molly Hooper's life had become a game and every atom in his body rebelled against playing.

He couldn't help but flinch at John's obliviousness. If John had kept quiet, Sherlock thought he might have been able to simply plow through it, simply set his mind to the goal and do whatever he needed to get the release code. But John Watson was forever curious, forever missing the obvious (they had that in common, he supposed), and today more than ever, John Watson was his heart and his humanity—things he would not be able to turn his back on today, not even to save himself the pain of whatever bloody violence and tricks came next.

Looking at those words again, seeing them with his humanity so close to the surface felt like death. He couldn't do this. He could not. Do this. He could not say those words to Molly Hooper. He didn't fully understand why but every thing that lived in his heart, in his soul cried out against it.

So, like the girl in the plane, like the brothers hanging by threads, like the man and his wife; Sherlock would have to attempt to weigh the lesser of two evils. Kill the husband to save the wife—take a parent to spare the children from orphanhood? Save a murderer or kill all three? Get a little girl to kill herself and everyone on board by landing her in the ocean or try to save her and risk the lives of countless city citizens? Speak forbidden words to Molly Hooper or watch her die?

Well, that was hardly a choice. With numb determination, Sherlock gave a single nod to his sister's rules. He would play this game. He would play it to perfection. Molly Hooper could not die—it would be the very end of things—the very end of _everything_.

And then came the confusion. The incomprehension. Molly always answered his calls—usually by the third ring unless she was properly swamped or had left her phone in her desk drawer while she was conducting an autopsy. Yet there she was, in her kitchen, unencumbered, just… ignoring him. He couldn't… he couldn't wrap his head around it.

"Hi, this is Molly at the _dead_ center of town" He suddenly couldn't breathe, even as he filled his lungs with a great breath of air, he felt couldn't breathe. This was it. This was the last time he'd ever hear her voice. These were the last words he'd hear of hers, that stupid bloody pun and that perfectly Molly not-quite-laugh at her own humor—unashamed and delighted with herself, as she should be. It was strange, though he tried to scramble for something to reason with Eurus, all he could think about was how their last memory together would be in that little cake shop; him and John and Molly and Rosie. She'd looked tired—exhausted really—but he'd felt something dangerously soft in his chest when he'd watched her tend to Rosie (she'd clearly been doing it for a while and Sherlock began to wonder just how much she'd taken on while the world waited for Mary Watson to karate kick her way back into the waking realms) and he'd ruminated on John's desperate, heart broken, heartfelt lecture for long into the night afterwards. It was a good memory to have. Something sweet to cling to, even if there was an aftertaste of regret to it.

Then, a miracle. For the first time, his sister showed mercy.

He had never been so relieved to hear another person speak in all his life. He could barely function through the relief but the fear of getting it wrong—of the stead running out of time, nearly a minute already gone and he hadn't even gotten a word in yet—kept him going, kept him as steady as he could possibly be in the moment.

"Molly, I just need you to do something very easy for me and not ask why." It was easy, and simple, and there was no reason he shouldn't be able to get her to say it with more than enough time to spare. He could do this, he could save Molly Hooper. He could keep her safe where he had failed with the five before.

But she was frustrated and irritated and not in the mood for one of his games—and for once, they were very much on the same page there. But he had to find a reason, had to find the words to make her say the release code. And if there was one thing Molly Hooper never hesitated in doing, it was helping others—him especially. He had asked her to help him safe John Watson, he had asked her to help him die, he had asked her to help him get clean again and again. She had never said no to helping Sherlock Holmes. This would be no different—he couldn't afford for this to be any different.

"I'm not at the lab." She said quickly and just as quickly, he answered, though he could feel the panic rising to the surface as he watched the unrelenting extinction of the last minutes and seconds of Molly Hooper's life.

"Well, quickly then."

And to his horror, he… hesitated. He couldn't—he just couldn't say those words. Those words that would safe her life, he couldn't ask her for them. More and more and more panic curled up his neck, pricking the backs of his eyes and making every hair on his head itch. Molly Hooper was going to die because he couldn't ask her to say three stupid words.

"Leave me alone."

The rush of adrenaline, the horror show of every murder scene he'd ever been to involving explosives with the body bits replaced with the pieces of Molly Hooper flashed through his mind; he couldn't help the panicked shouting, couldn't help commanding her to stay on the phone—to live.

The warning voice of Eurus made him suck in half a breath, made him draw back the hand that had reached for her.

 _Focus,_ _ **focus**_ _._

"Why are you doing this to me? Why are you making fun of me?" She demanded. He could hear the outrage, the hurt in her voice. They were going nowhere fast and all he had was a single minute left— _oh_ _ **god**_.

He had a _minute_. A single minute of Molly left in the world.

He had to work quickly, work carefully. He had to save Molly. This nightmare could not be their final memory, could not be their last minute together. He had to do this. He **had** to.

"I'm not an experiment, Sherlock." He had miscalculated, his panic had made him reach for something familiar, something they shared—cases and experiments, that's what they did together, that's something they could always rely on—and it had come out wrong. _God damn it_ , it always came out wrong with her! It was easy to babble out the truth. They were friends and he was desperate. He just needed those words, just needed her to say those words. He'd explain it all later, he'd fix it later—she just had to be alive enough to meet him in that later.

And god it hurt to hear her beg, it hurt him to the very core of his being. God he just wanted to call it off, to relent, to tuck her into bed with her cuppa and beg for forgiveness. But that wasn't an option. There was either confession or death. There was no kindness, no chance to drop the matter entirely, no choice but to lay her out and cut her open—before an audience no less. So he dogged through, he plowed on, he asked more of her than he ever, ever had.

"I can't say that to you." What a stupid thing to say. He was trying to save her life. He was going to save her life. They were just three stupid little words. People said them all the time without meaning them. People told it to their friends, their lovers, their cars. God, why couldn't she just spit them out already!? Why did she sound as if _she_ was the one in agony?!

"Because it's tr-" a struggle for breath in the kitchen, "Because it's true, Sherlock."

He felt like a gong struck. Every bit of him was suddenly vibrating and numb at the same time. He had known. Of course he had known. Molly Hooper had a crush on him. Everyone knew. Quite a few even had some rather unkind things to say about her for being so relentlessly attached to him. But it wasn't… it couldn't be _love_. Not actual love. Not the sort his mum had cooed over in their childhood, not the sort that filled his father's soft, simple eyes whenever the old man watched his wife at work.

"It's always been true." he can barely hear the last two words and he's not entirely sure if it's from Molly's suppressed sobbing or if the crushing realization of _exactly_ what it is he must ask of her to keep her alive is deafening him a bit.

His entire world has narrowed to two single points in the entirety of their infinite universe; a clock counting backwards, filled only with seconds now—no more minutes to spare, and the full realization that he must break the woman that has been his rudder and anchor to keep her alive.

"Well if it's true, just say it anyway." Of all the cruel words he has every spoken in his life, he thinks these may be the cruelest. He hopes Molly lives to slap him for them. He just about hopes John will beat him for them. He deserves punishment. He does not deserve Molly. But he needs her. They all need her. The world is hardly a place worth having without Molly Hooper in it.

"You bastard." He deserves worse. But he uses these new waves of self loathing to fuel the firmness he speaks with.

And then Molly Hooper turns his world on its head for the umteenth time that day, "You say it first."

He can't think past those words for a moment, can't seem to comprehend them at all for a beat. And suddenly the tables are turned and he feels like he might be sick as the sudden urge to flee strikes at his heels leaving him strangely frozen in his confusion. Then dawning, crippling realization that to save Molly, he has to say them. They have to speak "I love you"s to one another and it feels like the end of the world somehow.

He can't do this. He doesn't even properly understand why he can't do this but yet again his very atoms cry out against it. It will change everything. It can't be done—not like this, he can't hurt Molly Hooper like this, this is a bell that can't be unrung. It will change everything. And if he says it here, says it now, says it like this; it will break everything, too.

But he can't loose another friend. He has so few of them. And without Molly, without Mary, he doesn't know if they'll survive—if he'll survive.

"Final thirty seconds." Eurus calls, like some sort of game show host.

He hasn't got a choice. They're just words. He'll fix this when they're back home. He'll make her a cuppa and tuck her into bed and ask her about her bad day and explain everything and apologize and bring her some of that cake she liked from their cake shop. He'd do it all, do whatever it took to mend this. But Molly Hooper had to survive long enough for him to try. So he closed his eyes, he swallowed hard, he tried to bring forth that "boyfriend material" Sherlock he'd been for Janine, tried to bring out his best disguises he'd ever created that were kind and sweet and the sort of people that could speak the sort of "I love you" Molly Hooper deserved.

He choked on the very first word. Took a moment to steady himself, tried again, "I love you."

The ring of truth in those stilted words was deafening, the realization a full body wave of intense calm, a sensation of being made utterly and completely whole for perhaps the first time since his childhood. The words were past his lips a second time before he even realized he'd spoken.

He loved Molly Hooper.

It was a beautiful sensation that slipped through his fingers like the sand of the hourglass counting down her final seconds on earth as he was met not only with silence but the visual of Molly pulling her phone away from her ear, looking at the screen with an expression his now slightly addled mind could not completely comprehend. It looked like… like pain?

He had hurt her. He had hurt her with the truth of it somehow and now she was going to die and her last moments on earth would be filled with pain he caused—and he would never hear her say it back to him. He would never know what those words sounded like on her lips—sounded like when they were said just to him, just for him.

 _Oh god, oh god_ , less than ten seconds, less than ten seconds to say three words. He begged. With a single "please," he begged her not to die, he begged her to love him in return, he begged her for forgiveness, he begged her with everything he was.

And she gave it to him.

"I love you." It was barely audible, barely allowed past her lips bit it stopped the clock and filled him with a rush of _life_. He could breathe again. He could move again. He could think again. His entire body from the tips of his hair to the soles of his feet tingled with the rush of it. Molly Hooper loved him. Molly Hooper was alive and she loved him. And _bloody hell_ did he not want to hear his brother give some stupid speech on the lesser of evils or whatever it was Mycroft was ready to babble on right this minute.

He didn't have time for this. He didn't have time for any of this. He had to get back. He had to solve these puzzles, play these games, and get back home. He had made silent promises to the woman he loved—the woman who loved him—and he meant to keep them.

He was not allowed to keep his new rush of life, however.

"There were no explosives in her little house."

 _What?_

"You lost. Look what you did to her. Look what you did to yourself! All those _complicated_ little emotions, I lost count. Emotional context, Sherlock; it destroys you _every_ time."

And as if Eurus had command of his mind's eye, suddenly all Sherlock could see was exactly what he'd done to Molly Hooper—could still see her body in the coffin as he steadily passed it and gently retrieved the lid, placing it on the coffin with soft reverence, eyes glued firmly to those innocent little words carved into the cold metal of the plaque.

It broke him.

All that agony. All that pain. He had done that. He had caused that. Those breaks in her voice, that pleading for mercy; he had done that. Not just today. Not just in those three minutes. There was old pain there. Layers and layers and layers of it, tucked inside her for years. He had opened her up, had conducted a vivisection upon Molly Hooper and had been so pressed to get exactly what he wanted, he hadn't bothered to examine her properly, hadn't taken the care with his vivisection Molly would have taken with any run of the mill autopsy. (Funny that she gave more care to the dead than he did to the living.) Inside Molly Hooper there were scars and wounds that refused to heal. Inside Molly Hooper, there was pain he'd created without even realizing. He had been so frightened at the prospect of Eurus killing Molly Hooper, and yet, Sherlock began to see he'd been killing the woman for years.


	3. Chapter 3

He barely remembered taking the coffin to bits. But there were shattered pieces of it everywhere when John stepped up and forced his focus again. They had to keep going. They had to soldier on. Only now, Sherlock was feeling a bit reckless. Murmuring in the back of his mind was a single, dangerous phrase, " _What does it matter._ "

And as the next game was revealed, Sherlock had to wonder if Eurus was genius enough to truly understand exactly how precarious enough he was in the moment and had set this stage for him or if fate was in fact real and offering him a friendly hand. Choose? Choose between Mycroft or John? It was rather laughable. Though he had to applaud Mycroft. He truly hadn't expected his big brother to be so self sacrificing. Though he supposed it was how their idiot uncle had managed to rope Mycroft into this mess in the first place.

It wasn't nearly as difficult to turn the gun on himself as he'd thought it would be. Perhaps he and Moriarty really weren't that different. Distantly, he could hear his sister's confused upset, could hear her trying to bargain with him, could hear her trying to keep his interest. But he wasn't in the moment any more. He was in a little cake shop, his body aching and cramping and dizzy from withdrawal; his best friend at his side, chuckling and smiling at his daughter; his goddaughter somehow already completely covered in strawberry icing and chocolate cake, flailing her arms in delight and smacking her lips for more; and the woman he loved giggling through her dismay as she tried futilely to clean little Rosie up, chatting happily, keeping at bay the grey clouds that threatened them constantly these days.

He'd made promises to Molly—or rather, to himself about his treatment of Molly. But he didn't deserve the comfort they'd offer him. He deserved this. No, he deserved worse than this. But he wasn't going to kill his friend and he wasn't going to kill his brother. He felt considerably less troubled with the whole situation once the gun was tucked under his own chin.

Only, instead of the squeeze of a trigger followed by nothing, there was a sharp pinch at the back of his neck followed by a spinning of the world as he slowly faded from it. He woke to an all over body ache, the all too familiar feeling of having been drugged, and the now familiar voice of the little girl on the plane calling out into his ear.

John is crying out. The girl is crying out. Eurus is singing the unsolvable riddle. It's chaos in his head but there's something human in Eurus now. He saw a flash of it after Molly—a brief twist of her features into something almost sad. It's been growing in the hours they've been out. And maybe—maybe that's where his hope lays. Not with winning games and cold logic, but with humanity.

And even with the pain, the brutal, deep pain he's always felt but never understood until the name long forgotten comes to his lips again: Victor Trevor—Sherlock believes now more than ever that it is the humanity in the Holmes that will save them. Not their brilliant brains, but their fragile little hearts. He can't save Redbeard. But he can save John Watson. He can save the little girl on the plane. He can save his sister.

It's strange going home afterwards—not that he's really going home. 221B is still blown to bits and Sherlock's arrange accommodations can hardly be called "home" no matter how nice Mycroft's made them. Sherlock can't reconcile the insanity and terror of the night and the sudden world of new memories—old memories, in point of fact—that are filling his head with the utter sameness of the London streets around him. Sherlock's entire existence has been altered beyond his own recognition and yet the world is… exactly as he left it. His feet take him to Baker Street where he wanders through the ruble. It's a wonder there's still so much of the flat left. He picks mindlessly though the pieces of it, vaguely mourning the loss of some books, some samples, some bits of sentiment.

Something crunches underfoot; glass. Carefully he steps back and finds a damaged slide, the glass scorched in places now broken completely under his heel. It's one of a few that've spilled from a very familiar over turned box of slides. He's frozen solid for a long minute before he kneels down and, for the first time, attempts to recover something from the wreckage of his home.

The wooden box had been plain but sturdy, made of a lovely, warm cherry wood. The wood was scorched quite badly on one side, a dovetailed corner cracked open, the dovetail having snapped off and lost among the rubble. The metal joints that held the lid had ripped from the bottom of the box and clung to the nearby flung lid on tenuous nails, their metal well mangled and unlikely to be easily repaired. He lifted the lid from the ash and debris with care, turning it over to find the slide index tucked into the underside of it was nearly completely turned to ash. All that remained legible was the simply printed "Index" in pail red at the top of the card and a few letters in Molly Hooper's familiar hand for the first three entries.

He closed his eyes and bowed his head, inexplicably heart broken at the sight of only a few vowels and a single "p" that remained. Gently, he set it aside in a relatively clear portion of the floor before turning his attention to the box itself. It was upended, some of the slides still tucked (hopefully) safely inside while others were partially falling out and a few others (including the one he'd so carelessly stepped on) were flung free of the box and any protection it might have offered from the explosion. He fretted for a few moments, terrified of doing more damage in trying to move it before he finally unwrapped his scarf and used it to gently attempt to ease the delicate slides that had partially fallen from safety back into the lined cherry wood slots and then carefully, carefully turn the box back over—his heart giving a little jerk of fear when the slides all at once slid fully back into the slots with a collective "thunk." He tried to salvage the ones that had not been offered the protection of the box but it was a lost cause. He spent hours and hours fretting over the slides until, finally, he had to admit that of the thirty five slides, eight were unsalvageable and eleven were quite seriously damaged. When he finally had to hang his head in defeat, had to accept the Christmas gift of wonderfully rare and strange slides painstakingly created by Molly Hooper specifically for him—a gift he hadn't even bothered to open until some time after he'd returned from the dead—had been so badly damaged, seemed so beyond repair, so carelessly ruined by one single act of irreverent cruelty; he cried. Alone in the kitchen/lab of 221B, Sherlock Holmes hung his head and sob in agonized defeat.

He remembered vividly the night Molly had given it to him. Remembered the cold water shock when he'd opened the card to find not some boring name of some boring man (his money was on someone from work—Molly hardly got out enough to find a love interest elsewhere) but his own name staring innocently back at him. Not just his own name, not just a card labeled with a name meant to identify the recipient, either. She had given him a beautifully, crushingly sincere title.

 _Dearest Sherlock_

And it had sucked the breathe from him. Had physically drawn him back. Such gentle hand writing. Such kind words. Such… perfect Molly-ness. Simple. Sweet. Sincere. And he had thrown it in her face. He'd tried to apologize but he had a case on and he couldn't face the rapidly growing shame of his own actions. He had abandoned the red box as quickly as he could, grateful for the distraction Adler offered with such perfect timing. When he returned to the party to appease an insistent Hudders, he barely caught the tail end of Molly's ridiculously large coat slipping out the door. There was hardly an acknowledgment of her leaving, hardly a ripple in the pond of their social circle. He was not quite prepared to see her again so soon, certainly not prepared to face seeing first hand the fall out of his words. That was the beauty of being Sherlock Holmes—he very rarely had to face the consequences of his actions.

It did not help that for some reason, he felt almost violently uncomfortable with Molly and Irene in the same room together—even if one of them was dead. The urge to babble—to explain (what, exactly, he needed to explain, he hadn't the foggiest) was ridiculous. But there it was, along with chalkboard writing and arrows to every little sign of Molly's quiet distress.

Hair that was normally kept up at work and had been curled and teased into something she'd mistakenly thought as fashionable for the party was now down. Simply down. She had taken out the little Christmas cheer bow (he knew Molly secretly loved putting bows in her hair—the bigger the better), had taken down the little bumpette meant to give her hair more volume, brushed out the waves and curls and simply… left it. Her little black dress was gone, replaced with comfortably warm slacks and a Christmas jumper—a relic from before either Mr. Hooper had passed or Mrs. Hooper had become equally dead or distant (it was jarring to realize he didn't actually know despite how many years he'd known her). It was an attempt to comfort herself, an attempt that didn't appear to be working all that well. All added it, it was not a practical thing—not a transformation from party attire to work attire, this was simply… how Molly Hooper was spending her Christmas. Alone. With the dead.

And still, she was courteous, thoughtful; warned him before she revealed the disfigured visage of Adler. And she was right. It was difficult. Nearly impossible, actually. Similar hair color, similar cosmetics. He hated asking it, he hated doing this to her, another blow so soon after—well, _after_. But he had to know. He had to be sure.

He didn't open her present that Christmas or the next or the next. He rather forgot about the gift itself (the events of that Christmas would not agree to deletion, no matter how hard he tried some nights), until he'd been throwing a particularly rambunctious fit of boredom after his return from the dead and while just about destroying his closet and all it held, he spotted the flash of dull, faded red in the corner. It had stilled him for a beat before he'd set to examining it, reading its journey.

By the partial fading of the paper, it had been exposed to partial sunlight for quite some time: It had remained exactly where he'd left it until after his death. Mrs. Hudson had likely been the one to move it while she was trying to tidy the place up. The paper was crumpled, the folds coming undone and the tape growing a bit brittle. Most telling of all was the thick layer of dust covering it. The distribution told him it had collected dust evenly across the top for some time—likely while it remained unmoved while he was still alive—before it had been tossed a bit carelessly—likely fell out of a storage box, lost behind things, sat on its side at an angle—where he'd found it, collecting dust on the top corner and sides. He gave a puff of breathe to dislodge the accumulation but it did little good, most stubbornly stuck to the paper it had spent the last two and a half years. He dared not open the card again, did not want to see that vivid and unpleasant reminder—especially not now that "quite a lot of sex" Tom was in the picture—but he took great care in opening the long over due gift. He was not at all sure what to make of the plain cherry wood box with the card lain carefully on top.

When Mrs. Hudson came to check on him (the only thing more worrying than a noisy man-child was a silent man-child), she found him glued to his microscope, box of slides open at his side. When she'd questioned him if he needed anything, he'd barely managed a grunt and Martha decided that was as good a sign as any that Sherlock had finally found something to occupy himself with.

He barely remembered the contents of the card now—there had been a rather terrible riddle (it had actually been less riddle and more atrocious puns, god the woman simply could not resist them) meant to let him know the seemingly blank index card actually bore some invisible ink—but he did remember it had been a challenge, something to stave off the boredom for a time, solve the slides and prove your right with a bit of heat—but if you get it wrong and owe Molly Hooper some ambiguous favor. And he remembered the heaviness of those first two words repeated again:

 _Dearest Sherlock_

He'd not yet been able to identify them all—would never be able to identify them all now. He hadn't put the card to heat, either. It wasn't an adrenaline junky's puzzle like Moriarty or The Woman had offered him. It wasn't life or death balanced on a knife. But it was intriguing and in the days he was tempted to pull out his hair or put a needle in his arm, he'd found it easy to drown in those slides instead. They were tricky, foreign, obscure. They required his full attention, required his mind to work at its best.

And now they were burnt and broken and he could not stop drawing parallels between Molly Hooper these beautiful slides, neglected but always there when he needed them, put away when he didn't, forgotten in the rush of the game, in the excitement of the chase, these precious things he had neither taken the time to truly enjoy nor been able to save from disaster, these mysteries and moments he would never get back; broken beyond repair.

He knocked when he arrived at Molly's door; perhaps the first time he'd ever actually knocked on her door. He couldn't quite remember actually deciding to come to Molly's but he was here now and he needed to see her. Needed to know she was alive and well and that they would survive this. Together. But he would do it on her terms for once. He did not have the right to let himself into her home. He had done enough. He knocked again, louder this time, called with a broken voice to let her know who it was—though once he'd announced himself he wasn't sure if knowing who was standing on her front stoop would make her fear him more or less.

No answer came. No signs of life. And no wonder. It was nearly three in the morning. He turned from the door, unsure what to do or where to go. He should go back to his temporary living space. He should get some rest—tackle this in the morning at least slightly rested, perhaps with a bit of food in him. But he couldn't leave. He needed to see her, he needed to breath her in, to be surrounded by the smells of lemon and cat and chemicals. He fumbled with his keys, osculating before her door in indecision. He needed Molly, but Molly might not need him—might need him to stay away.

But Sherlock was never really one for great self control. His key—the one she'd given him after she bought new locks and reminded him that every time he picked her lock, he made it easier for someone else to pick it—still worked and though it had been less than twenty four hours since that phone call, he was still rather surprised. He slipped into the warmth of Molly Hooper's home, though he noted it was several degrees cooler than she usually kept it, locking the door behind himself as he slipped off his shoes. He didn't turn on the lights as he moved through the little house, he knew the place by heart. He called softly to Molly in the dark as he neared her room, not wanting to frighten her for once. But when he finally pushed open the door, he found not a sleeping Molly, hair tousled, jimjams rumpled, lips lax in deep sleep, but an empty, well made bed.

Quickly, he turned on the light, took in the entire room, made it tell him all it could of Molly Hooper, made it reassure him that she was safe and sound and not kidnapped or dead in another room. She hadn't been sleeping here often but there were no signs of a romantic relationship to account for her regular absence. She had been packing a bag regularly—a small duffle or gym bag of some sort, perhaps an overnight bag for wherever it was she must be sleeping now—judging by the impression in the carpet by her dresser. She had the bag with her now, obviously. A quick scan through her closet and drawers revealed she'd packed enough for two days. He wandered through her house, startled to realize just how much of Molly Hooper's life he'd been missing.

At the desk that had once housed medical journals, theories and experiments she had floating about her head, ideas for papers, observations that niggled at her curiosity, stacks and stacks of notes and ongoing studies she was waiting to publish or peer review; there was now a completely different kind of meticulously organized chaos. On the wall where there had once been a cork board full of a thousand different color post its with the occasionally interesting pictures of decaying flesh, there was now only one massive calendar. Rosie's pediatric appoints, sitter schedule, and social outings. John's therapy appointments accompanied by notes to double check he'd actually gone, his work schedule, his visits to Mary. Mrs. Hudson's baby sitting availability and holidays. Mary's check up dates and visitation hours. A dozen video conferences for that month alone at the oddest hours (he recognized a few rather impressive names—a Swiss pediatrician, and two different brain trauma specialists from Korea and Egypt). Endless notes to trade shifts with people, sitter availabilities scheduled then scratched out then rescheduled then scratched out again and again. Notes on John's mental state, notes on Mary's progress (or lack there of), notes on Rosie's milestones. Across the desk were basic books on childcare and more advanced medical journals on the early signs and symptoms of what looked to be any and every plague known to half-pint kind. There were journals on brain damage from blood loss—long and short term effects, the chances of waking from various types of comas, possibilities of loss of some cognitive functions, the effects and stages of muscle atrophy, how to prevent and recover from atrophy, even a copy of Mary's charts which she really shouldn't have had access to—there were journals on PTSD and depression, but most crushing of all, there were journals on the long term effects of opioid abuse. In these, there were detailed notes and criticisms. In one in particular, there was a half written letter of courteous fury tucked between pages dictating in clipped tones exactly what Molly Hooper thought the author could do with his judgmental pity.

 _That your patients feel the need to self-medicate may stem from deeper problems than their implied lack of morals you have inexplicably ascribed to sobriety. I would highly recommend you begin the search for the root cause with your bedside manner, sir._

Sherlock couldn't help the fragile little chuckle that left him at that. Though hardly anyone respected her own title, Molly only ever denied using a fellow doctor's title when she was right and truly pissed. But it was still hard to see all this—the evidence of Molly's efforts to care for people on all fronts. He carefully removed the calendar from its little nail in the wall and began to turn back the clock. Through meticulous, color coded notes, Sherlock watched John's downward spiral; watched Rosie's various ear infections, a UTI, a brief bout of pneumonia, and some very angry penmanship beside a sitter's name explicitly reminding herself to never call the boy ever again; watched Molly Hooper put the whole of her life on hold for her friends. Worst of all was the discovery of an innocent little journal. It's tan cover was plush with yellow, pink, and blue whimsical designs sewn into the fake leather. It was a baby journal dedicated to Mary.

 _To Mary, with all our love._

 _I know it's not the same as having been here but I hope this helps._

 _-Papa Watson, Baby Rosie, and Godmum Molly_

Sherlock would be quite willing to bet John didn't know a thing about this journal tracking his child's progress through life. The man was barely functional these days. Even if Molly had told him, there was hardly a guarantee John had heard her. As Sherlock flipped through the pages, he found Molly's meticulous nature put to good (although sometimes a bit graphic use—he was fairly certain Mary would be quite a bit less than heart broken to have missed the misadventures of Rosie Watson's constipation) use. But the further along he got, the more often he noticed the entries reading less like fastidious accounts of Rosie Watson's days and more like private letters to a friend and sometimes even as near to a diary as he could ever imagine Molly keeping.

It was suddenly all too much, the more he looked about her home, the more he noticed, the more he saw how neglected the woman he loved was. The house was colder because she kept the temperature at the bare minimum now that she was barely living here. Toby had not assaulted him with demands for pets and treats the moment he walked in because she'd had to give him up to a coworker or risk neglecting the poor creature utterly. Her fridge was no longer stocked with a small selection of fresh ingredients for the next few meals she planned to make but prepackaged, premade, store bought meals. Molly Hooper's work—the thing she had loved longest in the world, long before she knew of Sherlock Holmes—had been relegated to a corner, collecting dust as she struggled to keep not only her own head above water, but everyone else's as well. And despite her best efforts, she was drowning. She was drowning and no one had even noticed.

He could barely breathe, frantically shutting off all the lights, trying to hide what he'd seen, trying to somehow undo it all as he stumbled back to Molly's empty bed. He sought sanctuary there as he'd done on precious few occasions as a dead man. Only there was no sleep warmed Molly Hooper to curl around this time. So, coat and all, he tried to bury himself under the covers, tried desperately to find comfort in the smell of her surrounding him as he curled in on himself, burying his face in her pillows as he found himself crying for the third time in twenty four hours. But unlike the silent tears of realization and remembrance of Redbeard, or the resigned heart ache of Baker Street, these newest tears were nearer to hysterics as the great consulting detective crumbled in on himself.


	4. Chapter 4

As was her habit, Molly arrived at the Watson home before either Mrs. Hudson or Rosie were awake, to take over the care of their goddaughter. She tidied up quietly, slipping into the small guest room where Mrs. Hudson slept as she worked to collect the baby monitor so Rosie's fussy waking wouldn't disturb Martha. Though the guest room was small and—as the name implied—meant for guests, it was rarely empty these days and held little signs of its most regular guests. A goodly portion of the contents were Molly's; Molly's sheets and bedspread and pillows covered the bed, Molly's emergency toiletry kit sat atop a pathology journal on the shelf opposite the bed, a lemon cuticle cream sat on the nightstand, a pair of Molly's shoes and slippers kept in the corner for those all too frequent times she'd forgotten to bring one or the other. Mrs. Hudson was the next most easily noticed presence; some edibles tucked into the drawer of the nightstand, a few gay romance novels stacked beside Molly's cuticle cream, a half-used tube of liniment on the shelf, and a travel container for Martha's favorite breakfast tea. And if you looked just a bit longer, it was possible to notice the faint signs of Greg's occasional visits; a forgotten sock balled up under the chair he used in the morning to put his shoes on, a shaving kit the other side of Mrs. Hudson's liniment, a dried up pen on the window sill he'd gotten distracted half way through refilling. Molly took a moment to kidnap the pen and its abandoned refill when she took the monitor, swapping out the refill and tucking the pen into her work bag by the door to return to Greg when she likely saw him later that day.

Though Greg had been playing it rather close to the vest, Molly had noticed the signs of a new— _healthy_ —relationship a few months after Greg had finalized the divorce. The quietly posh pen and notebook set had clearly been a gift from his rich new girlfriend. Molly easily approved of the anonymous woman for despite the rather difficult times they'd all been struggling through, Greg—for once in all the years she'd known him—looked truly happy when no one was looking. (And the grins he got sometimes when he surreptitiously checked his phone were absolutely adorable. She could not wait for the pair to come out as a couple so she didn't have to keep her giddy approval to herself.)

Like clockwork, at three after three, the near silence on the monitor was broken by the beginnings of a Watson fuss. (It was rather amusing to note that Rosie's fussing often sounded rather like John's flustered huffing when Sherlock was being particularly bloody minded. Though now, even the brief, peripheral thought of Sherlock brought tears clamoring to her eyes.)

Molly greeted the babe with quiet cooing, changing her and patting her and distracting her with a bit of breakfast before dressing and bundling the littlest Watson up, nesting the precious babe on her hip and slipping out the door. It was a good thing the Watsons had moved away from central London and into a quieter, safer borough. For Rosie Watson was quite partial to late night and early morning walks and was a real terror on the rare days she did not get one. So young and already relentless in her demands for the occasional baby sized adventure.

They swayed slow through the night; calm and quiet as godmother murmured poetry and scientific theory to goddaughter and answered sweetly to the things the little human pointed at with curiosity or enthusiasm. Molly found these long walks in the chilly London air, with Rosie tucked at her side, to be a true balm to her soul. It was not just that Rosie was a child and that a certain healing seemed to come with being so wrapped up in the innocent newness of the world through a child's daily experiences, it was also catching glimpses of Mary and John in the most unexpected of places. Everyone saw Mary in Rosie's mischievous eyes and grins, and John in her stubborn jaw and pouts. But Molly wasn't sure who else saw Mary in the way Rosie was beginning to hold her cups and spoons; John in that little irritated side to side bob and huff when Rosie was particularly frustrated. The bigger Rosie grew, the more Molly saw of _both_ her parents in the way she moved through the world.

"Good Lord, I hope you're not an adrenaline junkie like your da. No one'll be able to keep up with you!" Molly groaned quietly to herself before Rosie decided the best and only place her fingers currently belonged was directly inside Molly Hooper's mouth.

It was going to be a long day if Rosie was already this excited for it but, as Molly sputtered and laughed earnestly and wholly for the first time in over a month, she decided it was going to be a long _good_ day. Yesterday had been an ending, a closing of a beautiful but ultimately painful chapter in her life. Today was something new, something better built on the ashes. It would certainly be easier said than done but Molly Hooper was determined to be happy again. And _no one_ was allowed to stop her.

Not even Sherlock _bloody_ Holmes.

Not even Molly _bloody_ Hooper.

* * *

Later that day, after breakfast and only minutes after she'd finished dressing Rosie from her bath (and suspiciously well timed), a well dressed woman with an oxymoronic air of driven purpose and casual apathy, seemingly glued to her blackberry, appears on the Watson's doorstep. Molly doesn't let the woman in at first—is, in fact, halfway through dialing Greg's number on the cordless landline she always takes with her to the door if her arms aren't full of Rosie—when her mobile goes off. It seems the DI has some rather impeccable timing. He doesn't explain why the woman's there or what all this is about but he tells her to listen and that Anthea's perfectly harmless— _well, to you, at any rate—_ and there's enough of something in Greg's voice to tell Molly this is serious.

Anthea is let in. Tea is had. Molly begins to flounder for some small talk to break them into whatever seriousness this woman has come to give her—it's not another death, she knows that at least; Greg would be here if it was—but Anthea is mercifully direct. No chit chat. No ambiguous euphemisms. Just the facts. The horrible, horrible facts.

Her security clearance isn't high enough to allow her all the details (which is an altogether different sort of terrifying as Molly knows exactly what it _has_ allowed her to know and do over the years) but Anthea tells what she can. A deadly criminal (worse than Moriarty, clearly, or Mycroft wouldn't have batted an eye at telling her everything) had taken Sherlock, Mycroft, and John hostage. Social "experiments" were conducted, at least five people were dead, a bomb threat had been made against her specifically, the entire phone conversation had not only been an attempt to save her life but had also been subject to an audience, and _would you mind if we did a sweep of your home for all the surveillance equipment and to verify the bomb threat was indeed unfounded_.

Molly thinks she's going to be sick as she nods.

Anthea sends a quick text and Molly assumes that should be the end of it but Anthea lingers, leaning back into the couch—finally taking up her cup of tea—and settling in as if she intends to stay; though she does not attempt to make conversation. Molly has no idea what to do with a strange woman nibbling bikkies and playing Words With Friends on an entirely new touchscreen she's produced from a pocket in her dress but it is quite literally the very last thing on her suddenly massive list of things to be deeply concerned about.

It somehow made it both better and worse to know the true circumstances behind Sherlock's cruel game. On the one hand, Sherlock hadn't set out to lie to her out of the blue and her life apparently meant enough for him to act his little "sociopathic" heart out. On the other hand, some anonymous villain may or may not have planted a bomb(s) in her home and had—without a single doubt—planted (rather extensive, as it turned out) surveillance in her home without her suspecting for even a moment.

Was she just completely oblivious to crime? First sweet Jim turns out to be an international criminal of the murderous variety and now this—whatever the hell _this_ even is, Molly still can't even begin to wrap her head around any of it.

Worst of all, instead of recognizing when Sherlock was in danger—when she was in danger—instead of knowing something very clearly wasn't right, she hadn't noticed a thing—hadn't even suspected. She should have, though. She had known and put up with and adored Sherlock for years and years and years and she should have been able to distinguish between normal Sherlock weirdness and cruelty, and vastly abnormal Sherlock cruelty. The whole thing suddenly felt like her fault—though she knew that was more an old bad habit of hers rearing its ugly head than actual fact of the matter. (It was so much easier to deal with the world if all the faults were her own—then there was a chance she could fix them with enough effort.)

And yet, even knowing all this—even knowing Sherlock hadn't set up to lie to her in the cruelest way or had any desire to expose her long held open secret; her very heart itself—she also knew things couldn't simply go back to what they had been. She wanted to believe—to at least pretend to believe—that knowing the gruesome whys and whatfors of the matter would be a flip switched, changing their dark future to light. But her heart told her it couldn't be and she was so very tired of lies and false hopes; she could not bring herself to pretend.

The words had broken something in her, to hear a lie so blatant sound so much the truth—to know he could do that do her still, despite all their time and friendship—it hurt so much deeper than any cruel honesty he'd ever spat at her. She needed time away from Sherlock—time she didn't really have and likely wouldn't be afforded. She wanted space as well, wanted Sherlock and the constant reminders of the gaping wounds she'd earned by simply loving him well away from her; out of sight out of mind. But none of that was really on the table.

Rosie and John still needed looking after, Mary was due for some check ups and a review of her current "wellness plan" in less than a week, John's sister was planning to visit (and Molly was not half as convinced as John was on the subject of her sobriety and there was no way in hell Molly was going to leave a not-quite-two-year-old in the care of a sometimes halfway functioning John and his less than sober, don't-trust-me-with-a-hamster, recovering from yet another break up sister) and she was very much out of sick leave to utilize in any attempt she might make to avoid Sherlock.

No, she would have to learn to live with Sherlock, of course; she was hardly going to abandon her life's dream of Bart's and Sherlock was hardly going to abandon his favorite lab—he probably wouldn't even understand why she didn't really want him there anymore. And they were Rosie's godparents. And they'd likely bump into each other on occasion during Mary's visiting hours. And John still needed quite a bit of looking after which—of course—fell to her and would likely continue to fall to her even with John well enough to take up cases again. So, she would have to learn to live with Sherlock Holmes; her overly simplified desires of the sleep deprived early morning of simply cutting the man completely out of her life, dashed with a bit of thought and taste of reality.

Molly was not going to give up her life for Sherlock and she hardly expected him to give up his life for her. So then, she would have to start drawing very, very firm lines and building strong fences. She could not be Sherlock's romantic partner, she certainly did not feel counted as one of his friends, so she would make herself the most excellent of neighbors.


	5. Chapter 5

Sherlock woke with a violent start from a dead sleep to the sound of unfamiliar feet treading dirt into Molly's carpets. He was on his feet in a flash, Molly's decent sized Tower of London model in his hand and ready to be used as a weapon—on second thought… Sherlock's eyes flicked down to the prized bit of overpriced sentiment. It had been a gift from her first days in London and meant quite a bit to Molly; best not dig his hole any deeper. With an awkward hesitance, he placed the Tower of London back on Molly's dresser and after a moment of flitting between objects, he settled on a bottle of wood oil forgotten in the corner mid-cleaning. Not great but frankly he preferred facing unknown villains under-armed than facing Molly Hooper as he attempted to explain his very valid reasons for having broken some precious piece of junk.

He was halfway through choking out some poor government employee via head lock before his exhausted brain politely tapped him on the shoulder and pointed out to him that these were not murderous home invaders but most likely Mycroft's people. Startled, he released the agent who immediately started gasping for breathe as a wholly irritated expression came across his sleepy face.

Sherlock was—understandably—asked to leave rather soon afterwards so the techs could do their jobs. Obviously, Sherlock being Sherlock, he refused point blank.

Instead, he hovered. He scolded everyone and anyone for touching everything and anything—especially if they didn't put things back exactly as they'd found them. He groused about messes made and became the official shoe police of the Hooper residence. And as a side project—a genius could never be too busy!—he attempted to not have an absolute mental breakdown as the full extent of surveillance was slowly but steadily excavated and eradicated.

Because of course it hadn't _just_ been cameras aimed at the kitchen. There would have been no way for even Eurus to guarantee Molly's placement within her own home exactly when his sister needed it. And it wasn't just cameras they were pulling out of (what felt like) every nook and cranny of Molly's home. While the audio from The Phone Call had clearly been supplied exclusively through the audio available to Molly's mid-range phone, it was made clearer by the minute that Eurus could have provided crystal clear HD sound for his torture.

Something prickled at the back of Sherlock's mind as he tried not to vomit over the ever growing pile of evidence baggies filled with audio and visual devices. Why _did_ Eurus need so many? Why did she need to be so thorough?

"Bart's as well." Sherlock blurted, hardly even aware of the thought before it was out of his mouth and tumbling into the room at no one in particular.

"Sir?"

"You'll need to check Bart's Hospital as well. If there are this many bugs here, Bart's is likely to be tampered with as well."

There were, of course, more at Bart's. Not near as many—Bart's own security cameras were apparently (still) broadcasting back to _Sherrinford—_ _but enough to warrant additional agents to cover the greater ground of Bart's._

 _Sherlock had been restless from the moment he'd set eyes on the historic building but now that he was well within Molly's domain (somehow, to him, the morgue felt more like Molly's home—more personal and specific to her—than her actual house and it made him feel more like a trespasser than he had sleeping in her bed), his hands were shaking slightly and his palms were sweating badly and his heart was pounding. He could not honestly tell if he was completely terrified or desperately excited. It somehow felt like both? He'd have to ask John if that was normal—or even a thing. He would have to be asking John quite a lot of questions now that he was so very aware of his crippled but fully functioning heart._

 _And then Molly Hooper was there._

 _He expected Molly to be at Bart's. He always expected Molly to be at Bart's. And yet, as he turned a corner and nearly collided with the woman, he was completely startled by her presence. At her place of work. During a frequently scheduled shift._

 _"_ _Molly-" her name tumbled out of his mouth and he suddenly hadn't a clue where the rest of that sentence was supposed to go. He wanted to say eight different things all at once—though he wasn't 100% sure of the specifics of any of them. He wanted to explain everything, wanted to ask her for coffee—oh, no, terrible idea, he'd been rather a tit on that one—Angelo's instead. He wanted to hold her the way he'd seen John and Mary hold each other after a scare or a row. He wanted so, so much and it was all getting caught in his throat and before he could even try to pull a thought free, Molly was speaking with clarity and ease, though she looked distinctly uncomfortable and had taken a full step out of his personal space._

 _"_ _Sherlock! Didn't expect to see you here," a brief fumbled hesitance before she was back on track, speaking at a rapid clip,_ _"_ _It's alright, it's all been explained to me—well, as much as could be explained—I mean, I understand now. It's alright." Only it wasn't, it wasn't alright and it was increasingly frustrating that he could not manage to open his mouth to say as much,_ _"_ _I suppose thanks are in order. I got a text, they didn't find any explosives so that's a bit of a relief." She was already beginning to pull further away, continuing on to wherever and whatever it was she was meant to be doing, "The lab's free if you're bored—just be sure to clean up after. Greg's coming in_ _with a body. I can have him text you if he's bringing anything interesting with him. Though you look awfully tired. Might want to get some rest before you start back again." By the end, she was practically calling the words over her shoulder and down the hall at him as_ _she finally disappeared through a set of double doors._

 _Sherlock remained frozen for a moment, watching the heavy doors wobble together for a time in her wake. That wasn't… that wasn't… what_ _was_ _that. A brush off? Oh god, he hadn't gotten to explain things to her, either. She'd heard the truth (or some measure of it) from some other party. Obviously not from Mycroft—his brother was still quite shaken up and though Sherlock had faith in Greg's tending to him, Sherlock doubted very much his brother would have the time or energy to deal with goldfish so soon after… everything. Perhaps from John if either Molly had gone to check up on Mary or John had finally decided to return home to tend to his child and relieved Molly of the task._

 _Sherlock was suddenly aware that he was once again oscillating (at a rather literal crossroads) while trying to make a decision about Molly Hooper. He made a mental note to remember these god awful moments the next time he felt the rising impatience that came with having to deal with romantic entanglement cases._

 _With a pained sigh, he finally chose to continue on his original course. He had agents to scold and nooks to investigate. The decision_ _lasted all of four steps before he was turning on his heel and following Molly's path instead. All the while, he mentally attempted to reason with himself on why this was very firmly a bad idea. But his feet would not stop and no argument he formulated could hold up against the image of Molly's back to him as she quite literally walked out the door._

 _He had promised himself he would make this better when he got back, he had promised he would fix it if only Molly survived until "later." Molly had held up her end—she had lived into his later, existed safely in his now. It was time for him to step up and do whatever needed to be done for the woman he loved. (Though there was pain there, in those words and in that thought, there was a tingling joy that came with the sentiment and he did not—in truth—believe he would ever tire of thinking of Molly Hooper as "the woman I_ _love.")_

 _When he finally did catch up to Molly again in the mortuary, the moment his eyes landed on her, he opened his mouth to speak again. This time, he'd had the entire (rushed) walk down to formulate and rehears his words. He would not muck it up. He would get the words out as quickly as possible and then… well,_ _and then_ _. He frankly had no idea what came next. He might have been able to deduce a hundred different scenarios if he had been standing on the outside of this whole thing—or if Molly Hooper was less Molly Hooper and more Janine Hawkins (though even Janine he'd miscalculated on in quite a few fields). But he was standing in the thick_ _of it and Molly Hooper was still very much Molly Hooper and after everything he'd learned in the last day or two (dear god, had this whole madness taken less than 48 hours?) he was beginning to realize just how little he actually knew about Molly._

 _"_ _Molly-" he began again, this time his planed words firmly fixed in his mind._

 _"_ _Sherlock, I was just texting you." Lestrade cut in, putting away his phone._ _"_ _Not really sure it's your sort of thing but something's been bothering me about this one."_

 _And just like that all the courage Sherlock had built up for himself rushed right out of him. He took a moment to silently murder the DI in his head, swallowed his speech for Molly, folded his hands behind his back and took a decisive step forward._

 _"_ _The body was found in a back alley, 'bout half a block from a full-up shelter. Looks like he was stabbed. Should be simple but something-" Greg half frowned half winced and rubbed the back of his neck in that way of his that said quite clearly "something's bothering me about this," before giving a shrug, "I dunno, something's off_ _with it. Can't quite put my finger on it."_

 _As Greg had talked, Molly had been unzipping and pulling back the body bag. Inside was what appeared to be at first glance, a homeless man with several stab wounds to the gut._

 _"_ _Hard to say if anything was taken off him. No ID, the folks at the shelter didn't recognize him right off but this was over in Newham so you can hardly blame 'em." Lestrade continued as Sherlock bent over the body, analyzing_ _everything his senses could pick up. Though, for once, he was silent in his deductions for an entire minute before rising to make his announcements, for the first time in his life rather perturbed that this might actually be a mildly interesting case._

 _"_ _Good eye, detective." Sherlock started off a bit tersely, which left his two person audience a bit wide eyed in surprised, "I believe you will find this man was not recognized at the shelter because he was not—in fact—homeless. I'd say by the smudges on his hand and the missing notebook, what you have here is an under cover journalist. Though whether he was the victim of whatever he was reporting on or a hate crime is something the crime scene itself is more likely to reveal."_

 _"_ _Sorry,_ _hate crime_ _?" Lestrade asked, gesturing to the very white, very male, very not at all showing apparent signs of having—at the time of death—been associated with anything LGBT related, body on the slab beside them._

 _"_ _Yes, obviously." Sherlock drawled, though a moment later eyes that had still been flicking over the body glanced over to Lestrade. Sherlock gave a bit of a sigh before elaborating, "I believe Molly will find this man was born biologically female. Signs of hormone therapies and plastic surgery suggest transgendered though I suppose we could be dealing with a bearded lady who enjoys 'juicing' to the extreme._ _"_ _He finished sarcastically, still rather pissed at Lestrade for even existing at the moment._

 _"_ _Right." Greg took a moment to process the news before giving a nod, "Well, we'll leave you to it, Molly. Give a ring when you've got that finished." He waved at the body._

 _"_ _Of course. It'll take a while for the blood work but I'll give you the preliminaries as soon as I can."_

 _"_ _Ta." And then Greg was turning away, leaving Molly to the work she did better than any other, as he continued to talk with Sherlock, "You said something about a notebook?"_

 _Sherlock was torn for a moment. He wanted to stay, he wanted to have this conversation. He knew there were things that needed to be said. But he could find neither the courage nor the well rehearsed words any longer and felt the deep chill of the mortuary like never before. He did not think he was quite welcome here at the moment (and perhaps not for any of the foreseeable moments, either) and he was so far—so, so,_ _so_ _far out of his depths, he could not help but take the coward's way out._

 _"_ _Yes." Sherlock turned and followed after Greg._ _He rattled off the signs he'd noticed of the missing notebook before his souring attitude finally spilled out of the clipped tones and fast pace he'd used for the explanation._

 _"_ _Shouldn't you be looking after my brother? He's had rather a shock, you know. Shouldn't be left alone; might eat the entirety of London out of house and home."_

 _"_ _You know," Greg snapped in as much as Greg ever actually snapped at a Holmes, "the pair of you are the reason I started greying in my thirties, you tits."_

 _For the rest of the walk to Greg's car, the pair strode side-by-side in ruffled feather silence like a pair of grumpy pigeons. It wasn't even until Greg had pulled into traffic that the silence was broken._

 _"_ _He's trying to pretend nothing's happened." Greg finally grumbled, keeping his eyes very decidedly on the road and mumbling under his breath, "Bloody git," in such a way that it was difficult to tell if he was referring to Mycroft or the reckless taxi beside them._

 _There was more silence as Sherlock shifted awkwardly in his seat. He knew he was going to have to get better at these things—interacting with his fellow humans now that he was so vividly aware that he really and truly_ _wasn't_ _a machine—and of course Greg would be a rather brilliant place to start. (The man was rarely judgmental, quite even tempered on the whole, had been a father figure in Sherlock's life for some time now, and though the DI admired Sherlock, he lacked the often blinding worship John often had for Sherlock. Over all, a very solid choice to start testing this whole… "human connection" nonsense on.) That did not, however, make the situation any less awkward._

 _So, gathering his courage for what felt like the thousandth time that day, Sherlock cleared his throat and with a near wince on his face, attempted being human, "Yes, well, Mycroft can't really tolerate being anything less than perfectly in control."_

 _There was a snort from Lestrade and nearly amused mumble of, "You'd be surprised," which Sherlock_ _ **very decidedly did not hear**_ _._

 _"_ _Out Mycroft him." Sherlock nearly shouted, face a bit contorted and pale. As much as he loved his brother (and he did, he loved his brother quite dearly despite the terrible and irreparable mistakes Mycroft'd made) there were a great number of things Sherlock would be more than happy to absolutely never, ever, ever know about the man._

 _"_ _What?"_

 _"_ _You're likely the only man I know with a stubborn streak to match—perhaps even exceed in the right circumstances—my brother's."_

 _Greg's expression turned frustrated again, "Yes," he clipped, "I am very much aware that we're both pig headed bastards, Sherlock. It's rather a running problem."_

 _"_ _Well perhaps not this time." Sherlock answered, finally feeling like he was falling into a roll. He wasn't quite prepared to handle squishy emotions but psychological warfare against Mycroft Holmes was his bread and butter, "Mycroft didn't pop out '_ _Hello mummy, I'm The British Government!_ _'_ _complete with three piece suite, pocket watch, and bloody brolly." Sherlock's squeaky impression of a baby Mycroft was terrible but hilarious and made Greg deeply regret the inability to catch it on his phone, "He used bloody mindedness, forethought, and every available resource to take what he wanted from the people who had it. If you want to win this one, you'll need to do the same; out Mycroft, Mycrot."_

 _There was a thoughtful silence in which Greg seriously considered the idea, "And how would a copper without any resources go about Mycrofting the man himself?"_

 _"_ _You aren't without resources." Sherlock corrected, "Anthea likes you—well, she likes Mycroft happy-"_

 _"_ _She thinks I make Mycroft happy." The DI interrupted, looking hesitantly chuffed at the idea._

 _Sherlock scoffed and pouted, "Of course you do. It's positively hateful how_ _cheery_ _he gets. Now stop interrupting." Sherlock did not miss the roll of Lestrade's eyes, "You have Anthea to help you with security and physical access to Mycroft. And to help with the tactics of psychological warfare you_ _have me." The last three words came out awkward and hesitant._

 _Greg genuinely_ _wasn't sure what startled him more; the idea of waging psychological warfare against his partner for his own good, or Sherlock's freely given support. Frankly, the latter was probably more startling than the former; loving Mycroft did often feel like_ _warfare of one kind or another._

 _"_ _Right." Greg gave Sherlock a quick side glance, "Thanks."_

 _There was an entirely British boys_ _sort of awkwardness in the car for a few moments before Greg broke the silence again, this time steering them towards the safer waters of a case._

 _Impressively, the case of the dead journalist was turning out to be a bit more complex than Sherlock had expected. Less impressively, the world at large (and his own steadily shriving courage) seemed to be conspiring against his attempts to speak with Molly Hooper. Worse, the longer he didn't speak, the harder he found it to gather the proper words and the heavier the silences became. Molly was always precisely polite to him, never once rude or unaccommodating; but he could feel the distance between them. It was a bitterness on this tongue, tapping down the sweet words he tried to spill out. This new distance between them, it hurt and it terrified him. And he had not a single clue how to go about bridging it._

 _So he focused his attentions on less terrifying things; on solving a journalist's murder, on helping wage war against his brother_ _in the name of love_ _, on Eurus._

 _He learns to listen and speak to his nearly catatonic sister through their shared love of violin. He learns to listen and speak to his parents again, to treasure them and remember with them rather than brush aside and run from them. He follows odd bits and pieces of a murder steadily going cold that lead him only to dead ends. And for the first time, he understands why murders are sometimes simply written off as random acts of violence even with hints that they might be otherwise. He's finally started doing paperwork and the sheer volume of it he has to go over with Greg is frankly pure insanity. And between the shuffling of papers and the frustrated ruffling of hair and the occasional fit of pent of frustration in which Sherlock inevitably threatens (and attempts on two occasions) to set every bit of paper in Greg's flat on fire; he plots with Greg._

 _Sherlock tries—and mostly succeeds—to keep busy with these new and old aspects of his life. But sometimes, when the nights are long and he walks the streets of London while his dearest friends sleep sound in their beds, when the sound of Mary's closely monitored heart and outsourced breathing put him utterly on edge, when a particularly practical jumper catches his eye;_ _Sherlock slips into darker, dangerous waters. Sometimes he cuts the edge of with a fag, sometimes he feels the phantom itch in his veins—as if they've been left empty too long, and sometimes he finds himself in the bit of green generously dubbed a park two blocks from Molly's home, every word he wants to say to her rattling about in his head at lightning speeds. He often wonders if his key will still work. He hasn't tried since that first night. He doesn't think he has it in him to try again. Not only because he has not the slightest idea how many pieces he would break into if he found it didn't work but because he's not sure he'd be truly welcome even if the tumblers still took the key he now rubbed like a worry stone._

 _Not all things are lost to Sherlock Holmes in this radically altered new chapter of his life, but not all things are found, either._


End file.
